As winter descends on Cambridge’s skies, our thoughts turn to novels read by the comfort of roaring fires. Nothing completes a holiday season more than a good book—so we turned to our community of faculty, fellows and students for their help in curating a list of Holiday Reading Recommendations. They shared their favorite South Asian authors; their most inspiring reads; and what they hope to cozy up with this holiday season.
The torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan have eclipsed the label of a mere natural disaster; Pakistan is undergoing a humanitarian crisis. In the past two months, the heaviest rainfalls on record have killed over 1,300 people and have severely impacted 33 million others. The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) estimates that over half a million homes have been destroyed. Relief efforts are direly needed given the rapidly-worsening situation. Harvard College Pakistani Students Association is raising funds to provide victims with meals, shelter, sanitary products, and more. Please donate what you can so we can help give much-needed funds to those suffering in Pakistan and please share this far and wide so we can raise much-needed awareness for this perilous situation.
The Mittal Institute welcomes Rahul Gupta as a Research Affiliate. Rahul’s mission is a malaria-free India, and then the world, through the development of healthy housing strategies to complement the current core malaria interventions of insecticidal bed nets and indoor residual spraying. The Mittal Institute spoke with him about his past experience in the banking world, and current commitment to public health.
Sujata Saunik, former Mittal Institute Research Affiliate and current Additional Chief Secretary of the Government of Maharashtra, spoke with the Mittal Institute about her new book, “Deconstructing the Kumbh Mela: Nashik-Trimbakeshwar 2015 – A Public Health Perspective,” which details some of the underpinings of planning the Kumbh Mela. She was the Principal Health Secretary during the 2015 Kumbh Mela, and in the book documents the detailed planning, preparedness and foresight necessary to plan an event of such magnitude. Sujata says the book is a celebration of the zeal of the entire workforce that is involved in the event, and she shares her experience in the interview that follows.
Join us on Wednesday, October 6 at 8:00am EST for “India at 75: The Global Roots of Independence,” moderated by Dinyar Patel, Mittal Institute Research Affiliate and Assistant Professor of History at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) in Mumbai. He will join a conversation on “India at 75: The Global Roots of Independence” with panelists Nico Slate, Professor and Department Head, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University and Carolien Stolte, Senior Lecturer in History at Leiden University, The Netherlands. The Mittal Institute sat down with Dinyar to discuss the event and his new paper, which he will share at the talk.
Akshay Mangla, Mittal Institute Research Associate and Associate Professor in International Business at the University of Oxford, recently authored the new publication, “Social conflict on the front lines of reform: Institutional activism and girls’ education in rural India,” in Public Administration and Development. The study analyzes how institutional activists (frontline workers) within the Indian state negotiate social conflicts as they seek to integrate disadvantaged girls into the school system by mobilizing village women’s groups and encouraging deliberation with target households. The Mittal Institute sat down with Akshay to explore his recent work, and expertise in the comparative political economy of developing countries.
Cultural anthropologist Abdul Razaque Channa, Ph.D. shares his research on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on learning among Pakistan’s school age children. Professor Channa is a Research Affiliate at the Mittal Institute and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Sindh – Jamshoro.
The Mittal Institute’s April 7 talk, “The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan,” is headlined by Ian Talbot, Mittal Institute Research Affiliate and Professor in History and Director of the Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, University of Southampton. Ian has written extensively on the themes of the colonial Punjab, the Partition of India, and the political history of Pakistan, and is the author of a 2021 book, The History of British Diplomacy in Pakistan. The Mittal Institute caught up with Ian to discuss his early education, research motivations, and his new publication.